it was Philip of Macedon, apparently, who on conquering southern Greece sent a message to Sparta — Banno

Thanks for that. The Spartans always prided themselves on being laconic. I see the point now. The exchange took place in 346 BCE. Sadly, Philip proceeded to invade Laconia, devastate much of it and eject the Spartans from various parts of it. (See Wikipedia article on him).

What do you mean on this bit? — Apustimelogist

The information processing theory simplified is comparing the human brain to a computer or basic processor. It is theorized that the brain works in a set sequence, as does a computer. The sequence goes as follows, "receives input, processes the information, and delivers an output".

WIkipedia - Information processing theory

For example, the eye receives visual information and codes information into electric neural activity, which is fed back to the brain where it is “stored” and “coded.” This information can be used by other parts of the brain relating to mental activities such as memory, perception, and attention. The output (i.e., behavior) might be, for example, to read what you can see on a printed page.

Simply Psychology - information processing

My remark about recognising the limitations of the model is based on two issues. First, all this simply assumes that we can count a causal process as a cognitive or symbolic activity. But there's an issue about whether this is legitimate. Second, the example is fascinating because it simply ignores the so-called "hard problem".

Ok well, Im saying what is relevant is the causal-historical event whereby if there was any slight change to that event, there could not in any possibility be you. — schopenhauer1

What you don't seem to recognize is that whether any slight change means that the causal-historical events cannot result in me existing is a decision taken by you. If you check the detail, you will find that differences in the 98% of our DNA that is, as they say politely, non-coding, will make no difference to the outcome. Which other changes make a difference is something we have to assess on a case-by-case basis - brown eyes rather than blue eyes are unlikely to count.

But again, I think we agree on what is happening here physically. — Apustimelogist

The outline of the process is clear enough, and I think it is true that the spatio-temporal and causal history of the body is an important element in our identity. But there's a disagreement about how that is described. It seems to me unlikely that will be resolved any time soon. But one lives in hope.

Before conception, there wouldn't even have been this possibility of the "you" looking back now to begin with. — schopenhauer1

I don't understand you at all. Before conception, there were many possibilities of many conceptions, some of which would have resulted in someone much like me. So what you say here is simply false.

Ok well, Im saying what is relevant is the causal-historical event whereby if there was any slight change to that event, there could not in any possibility be you. It would be another person, if another person at all was born from the same parents. — schopenhauer1

I don't see a problem in saying that I might have been born with fair hair and blue eyes. If I had been, it would have been because of a variation in my DNA. Other possibilities would be more problematic.

We carve up nature — Apustimelogist

A popular matephor, but wrong. Nature does not sit out there (wherever that is), like a joint of meat, waiting to be carved up and served up. Nor are we separate from nature, hovering over it looking for the joins. Nature prods us and we prod it back. Interaction, all the time. Nothing is possible without it.

neurons work like efficient coding. — Apustimelogist

It’s pretty much inevitable that we will articulate our research in terms of that model. And it is sensible to take what we do understand and try to apply it to things we don’t understand. Plato was not an idiot to try and apply the mathematical models that he did understand to the empirical reality that he did not understand. We can’t even say that he was wrong, since we continue to do the same thing. It was his implementation that was problematic.
It goes back to the question whether we can say that computer calculates or speaks. Unlike Searle (if I understand him right) I think we not only do say that but that it is not a mistake to do so.
Nonetheless, I’m sure that in the end, we will have to recognize the limitations of this model/metaphor, if only so that we can get round them.

But only if. — Banno

The problem arises because people love to move from “if p, then q.” to “p”. Perhaps there ought to be a formal fallacy, which I would dub “suppressing the antecedent”. Certainly, in Toulmin's terms, we can assert that suppressing the antecedent results in an unwarranted assertion.

The same answer the Spartans gave Athens — Banno

I’m afraid my memory fails me. I know there is such a story, but I can’t remember the details. Could you remind me of the details of this story?

So again, it at the point of the conception of a specific gametes at a point in time and space whereby this individual can become the range of possibilities for that individual (including the actual person that is looking back at his life), and not any time before or after. — schopenhauer1

The trouble is this: at the point of conception, there is no individual that can become anything. The possibility (even probability) that an individual can become (grow) does indeed arise at that point. But an acorn is not an oak-tree; it is the possibility of an oak-tree. An egg is not a bird; it is the prospect of a bird. After the acorn has sprouted or the egg has hatched, we can look back and say that acorn (now gone) was the origin of this tree (now present) and so on. It goes back to Ryle and the battle of Waterloo.

Perhaps the concept of a life-cycle will be helpful here. A butterfly’s life-cycle is sufficiently complicated and public to be useful. First there is the egg (but no butterfly and no caterpillar), then the caterpillar (but no butterfly), then the chrysalis (and still no butterfly) and finally the butterfly - and then there is a dead butterfly. There’s a continuity between these stages that makes it helpful to call this process the life-cycle of the butterfly, rather than of the egg, the caterpillar or the chrysalis. In that way, we can recognize the continuity of the process and the changes that occur.

Part of the point of this is that as things grow new possibilities arise. Neither egg, nor caterpillar, nor chrysalis can possibly fly. The possibility only arises at the last stage. Young children cannot reach the top shelf. It is not possible. Ten years later, they can – it has become possible. When people go to school, some of them can read and some of them can’t. After some time, most people will have learnt and it has become possible for them to read. Why on earth do you think that all the possibilities of my life only arise at the moment of conception?

You can’t say “If only I’d …” because you could be wishing for anything. The point is, you’ll never know. You’ve gone past. So there’s no use thinking about it. So I don’t.’
— Terry Pratchet
Counterfactuals are recondite. You can’t say “if this didn’t happen then that would have happened” because you don’t know everything that might have happened. — Banno

I agree with that, in a way, and that's where possible worlds could be helpful because it could enable us to take into account what else, apart from the stated counterfactual supposition, would have to be different as well. (Though, of course, Putnam and others frequently rule that interesting and helpful possibility out so that their thought experiments can drive us to the conclusion that they hope for.)
But as a generalization, it doesn't make sense. Surely it is perfectly OK for me to say “If only I had checked the oil in the engine, we would not have broken down miles from help in the middle of a snowstorm.”? To be sure, it might turn out that I’ve avoided crossing the bridge at the moment that it falls down, but that’s most unlikely, and the problems I’m actually facing are quite clear.
It is true that I’m making an assumption - that checking the oil before driving through a snow-storm does not require any radical difference between myself as I am and myself as I would need to be in order to check the oil before I leave. For example, the supposition that I would have to be a bit less absent-minded or distracted than I actually was doesn't seem implausible. On the other hand, imagining what it is like to be a bat does require that I be something radically different from what I am and those differences mean that I would experience everything differently, so the project fails.

So sure, all that causally does have to be in place, and I am not denying that this causal chain has to be in place. However, the terminus for which this has to take place, where otherwise you would not even be there in the first place to reflect back is the conception. Anything after that, could still be a version of you, perhaps. Anything before would not even be a version of you, but a version of someone else. It would be someone else's range of possibilities (including the actualized one there is now looking back). — schopenhauer1

All chains are selections from the many interconnections of the web. When we articulate a specific causal chain, we make decisions about where it starts and where it finishes, to suit the needs of the moment. But if we attend to the context and recognize the web, we can see that those are decisions, not facts. I can understand why some people would like to think that the causal chain that you select is important. But other choices are equally valid. There's no magic about the fertilization of egg by sperm. Many people would high-light birth as the magic moment and this makes perfect sense when you remember that we do not know about your magic moment, except by inference. I'm deeply suspicious of these ideas, as you can guess by what I call them. The growth and development of a person is a complicated and lengthy process, not an instantaneous creation.

Meant I should reconsider some things because I think people are actually referring to what they say they are referring to. The difference between "water" and "H2O", in a technical sense, seems to depend on this. If what people really mean by "water" is "H2O" then I have no case at all. — Moliere

I would agree that the intention of the speaker is important in recognizing what is being referred to. In some cases, where I have misunderstood what the term refers to (I think that "mule" also refers to "donkey"), I need to be corrected. But this is an awkward case. Kripke, if I have him right, says that when I refer to Hesperus, I am referring to Venus, whether or not I know that Hesperus is Venus. This is all very well, so long as the context of use is shared between both parties. But if I don't know that Hesperus is Venus, my use of the term will be incomprehensible to you.
Similarly, if I don't know that water is H2O, my use of the term will be incomprehensible to you - especially if I'm not familiar with modern science. The issue is compounded by the use of the phrase "what people really mean". "Mean" is vague enough as it is and adding "really" makes it completely obscure. What is the criterion for what someone really means, as opposed to what they mean?
I don't think there is a general rule about this. We resolve issues like that as we go along, on a case-by-case basis. That is, there is no substitute for identifying and clarifying the differences between us. Once that's done, mutual understanding is restored. Kripke seems to think that it is beneath his dignity to recognize issues like this.

It seems to be idealizations everywhere though. Even if you want to go past the idealization of water=H2O, then the less idealized descriptions will include idealizations as per the nature of chemistry where various models still involve idealization. — Apustimelogist

Perhaps it would be better to think of what is going on as simplification. We have to decide (and agree) what features of the world are important in a particular context and need to be attended to and which are not.

What it is important to note here is that this is a choice about how we use the names "water" and "schopenhauer1"; not solely an issue of empirical observation. — Banno

That's ok so far as it goes. But there are complexities in that "we". It isn't a choice that we make by getting together, debating and voting. It's many choices made by individuals in the context of their pragmatic and social context.

This model - of stuffs or substances - what are sometimes called "mass terms" works reasonably well for some cases, which for some reason have become paradigmatic. But the idea that it has general application seems to me to be an instance of philosophical over-generalization.

First, things can often be classified in a number of ways, depending on circumstances and interests. We were discussing the case of a piece of wood that is a door, or the plant that is a crop and food and so on. Do we posit two natural kinds here, or just one?

Second, at first sight, hydrogen and oxygen look like natural kinds just like water. So, if H20 defines water, what defines hydrogen? Again, are there two natural kinds here or just one?

Third, there are some things that do not appear to consist of stuff at all. Rainbows, for example. They are natural, but don't seem amenable to the same questions as water. Or, one might think that water and clouds both consist of H20. But then, what is the difference?

Thus, it is at the point of conception that at least the opportunity for the actual you that is now reflecting, would be able to exist. — schopenhauer1

Yes, but a great deal has to happen before I exist. Why isn't the development of the heart or the brain also a point like the moment of conception? Why isn't the moment when my parents meet or marry, just as important? What about the moments when my mother and father were conceived? Aren't they also critical? It's a web.

I'm sorry if this seems outdated by what has appeared since I started writing it.

Nothing we categorize in the world avoids arbitrary abstractions. — Apustimelogist

Quite so. Not wanting to be picky, but what makes these abstractions arbitrary? Isn't it rather that the idea of natural kinds proposes a certain kind of model, but the facts (nature) undermine it. Where's the necessity?

Because it was that web of circumstances (conception) that is the point of time when the actualized person that is the you right now could have come to be in the first place — schopenhauer1

That's right. The web, not just one element in it. Given your extraordinarily rigid version of determinism, we can also say that as the causal web constantly changes and develops, any other point in time is also a point when the actualized person that it the you right now could have come to be. There is no reason to pick out any one moment in my life (or before it, or after it) as more or less important than any other.

Why do you speak of the actualized person that is the you?.... Surely the same applies to everybody else, so you would do better to say the actualized person that is <insert anyone's name> ......

By speaking of "you", you posit the person you address as a participant in the language game (or whatever other kind of practice we are engaging in). Genomes are incapable of participating in these practices. People do, and their identity as people amongst people is revealed (or perhaps created) in their participation. This is an unusual take on personal identity, but given our starting-point, it seems inevitable.

But the point is that it becomes a posteriori necessary, which is Kripke's controversial theory. — schopenhauer1

Well, if Kripke is right, it becomes a posteriori necessary. But that's a big "if", so I prefer to wait and see. It doesn't seem to matter, one way or the other.

that doesn't mean humans are their genome. — Moliere

No, patently not. But while we are speaking precisely, we need to bear in mind that we exist at three levels (at least). a) the physical object (the body), the animal (homo sapiens - a misnomer if ever there was one - and the person (which is an essentially social concept).

Yes on future-looking, but I'm uncertain on probability. If water actually is H2O, for instance, the probability of the statement is 1, and if it is not then it is 0. — Moliere

That's right. And my correspondent on mathematics in general and probability in particular tells me that these are regarded as degenerate cases of probability. I think it is more helpful not to call them any kind of probability, since it is the end of the logical cycle of probability, from uncertainty to resolution.

When you say "if water actually is H2O" you are positioning yourself at the end of a process. I distinguish between possibility and probability as distinct stages in a process. A possibility is what goes into a probability table before it is assigned a probability value; then it is assigned a value and becomes a probability (and not a possibility); then the outcome happens and it becomes either a certainty or a falsehood. The words are not sufficiently strictly defined to defend this as what the concepts actually are; it's just a helpful way to think about them. There are complications, such as the concepts of degrees of confidence and likelihood.

So that the common usage does not always pick out the very same thing even in our world, and so the claim to necessity is hampered by that possibility. — Moliere

I'm afraid common usage is too messy for us. Common usage can distinguish between water, sea water, sewage water, rain water, &c. Pure or distilled water is part of that range, but is really a technical idea, now adopted by common usage. Perhaps we need a natural kind for each of them?

that there may not be a comparison between water and people, or H2O and genomes, after all. Fair point. — Moliere

Well, you're being a bit strict there. I don't think comparisons are really true or false. I prefer to think of them as helpful or not, illuminating or not and so on. I certainly think that, in this conversation, the comparison between water/H2O and people/genomes is unhelpful. Water is H20. But people are not their genomes.

Rigid Designator says "Since the terms 'water' and 'H2O' pick out the same object in every possible world, there is no possible world in which 'water' picks out something different from 'H2O'."

One might agree that "If the terms 'water' and 'H2O' pick out the same object in every possible world, there is no possible world in which 'water' picks out something different from 'H2O'," but wonder how one could prove the antecedent, which is, in old-fashioned terms, empirical, and justify "Since the terms 'water' and 'H2O' pick out the same object in every possible world, ....." Putnam's example of Twin Earth seems to prove that you can't. See also my reply to Moliere below.

THIS person (the present you, not a counterfactual you that could have actualized differently), could not have been THIS person without certain factors. — schopenhauer1

Yes. Kripke does the same thing with his "this very lectern". I don't see the difference, philosophically between THIS person and this person.
We both agree that this person is the result of various factors. But you pick out one of them - admittedly an important one - and sweep away the rest as trivial.

If water is H2O, then water is necessarily H2O -- of course! But is it actually H2O? — Moliere

There's only one way that I can think of that makes sense of this. Essentially, it involves attributing to "possible" the logic that we see in "probable". The latter, at least for the purposes of mathematical theory, is essentially future-looking, because it is defined in terms of a future event - the outcome. The probability of my next throw of the die coming up 6 is 1:6. When I throw the die and it comes up 5, the probability of that throw coming up 6 is 0, i.e there is no probability of that throw coming up 6.
We could say that there is a possibility of club X winning the match against club Y. When club X loses the match, there is no longer any possibility of it winning. (Although you can say, counterfactually, that they might have won.) When the possibility of rain this morning is 60% and it rains, there is no possibility of it not raining. I imagine @Banno will have something to say about this.

When or how should a technical body of knowledge be used philosophically? — Moliere

It is difficult. The answer, in a word, is - cautiously.
One trap is is the adoption of an interpretation of the evidence long before it is certain. So I have seen people, on discovering that there is a deterministic interpretation of quantum theory, announce that we can all now relax, since science has proved that determinism is true.
My other pet hate is people picking up on the latest exciting results announced by a team who are looking for research grants and announcing that science has now discovered ..... It's one thing to look at the wonderful photos of galaxies etc. and quite another to draw conclusions from them. The latter needs good technical knowledge; the former does not.
On the other hand, it seems pretty much common sense that water is H2O and that the COVID virus causes disease. But it is then a mistake to forget that those are discoveries and the world might have been different.
I'm in favour of case-by-case rather than trying to draw up rules.

This is to my eye the best way to understand rigidity - as a rule of grammar. — Banno

Well, that resolves one of my difficulties about Kripke. It would be interesting to know whether Kripke thinks that this fits with what he has to say about rules.

Further I'd say that the case of water is easier than the case of a human being, so figuring out how we're supposed to talk about the identity of water might shed some light on how we might talk about genomes and humans, — Moliere

Well, it might be easier - but that doesn't seem to make it easy. One thing that makes it much more difficult is that if you are talking about the person, not just the human being, you are talking about a being that is not passive, but participates in the identity game and has views of his/her own. Many people would think that it is outrageous to reduce (and they mean that word literally) a person to their gametes. Heredity is not identity.

all possibilities of specifically, you (the person reflecting back in hindsight) to obtain, INCLUDING the one in the very present, right now, without it no longer being specifically YOU but someone else. That point is conception of those particular sets of gametes, in that causal-historical space. — schopenhauer1

The gametes issue doesn't take into account the fact that I am a participant in this game; that is, I have views about what possibilities I have and what possibilities would make me a different person and what possibilities would reveal the person that I actually (in my view) am. I'm not saying that I can dictate, but I can certainly demand that my views are taken into account.
Why do you feel the need to write "YOU" instead of "you", and why do you not consider the identity of a third person - not me, not you, but him/her over there? It seems you think it makes a difference.

Even if it was a different sperm that conceived that night a second earlier, that is not you, so the set of possibilities that encompasses the YOU looking back in hindsight is no longer even a fact. — schopenhauer1

I see four issues here.
First, your view that, once the egg is formed, everything is set. I'm not clear whether you intend this is in as a deterministic (causal) thesis or a fatalistic (in Ryle's sense) thesis. Your use of "necessity" suggests the latter, but it isn't really clear which you have in mind. Either way, which fertilized egg results from the process is just as determine/ necessary as what happens after the fertilization takes place. The causal chain does not begin with the event of fertilization any more than it ends when I am fully grown. So I don't see why you want to give any special emphasis to that moment.

Second, in inviting me to look back on my own conception, you have posited my existence as a given. So obviously any egg different from the one that began my process is not me. Just as any clone made from my body is clearly not me. But if I were to posit myself as an outside observer, not involved in the proceedings or, better, as a prospective parent, things look very different. I do not think of the many, many possibilities that there are and which I do not know about. I might care a great deal about various features the baby might or might not have, but I cannot say, when the baby is born, that the wrong one has been born. This harks back to Ryle's point about the difference between the future tense and the present or past tenses.

Third, there is an important difference between people and (inanimate) objects. People participate in their own identity. When they learn the use of "I" and "You" and "S/he/it" (and learning that "I" said by me is the same person as "you" said by you, is a really complicated and critical skill). But this does not depend on any history or social role or personal relationship. It works by responses, not by properties. You could call it the Cartesian self, for the sake of a name. When I learn to respond to my own name and how to use the names of other people, I begin to join society, but that is still not a question of the kind of identity you seem to be interested in; it is a question of my responses to others and the responses of others to me. My identity in this sense is settled by how we respond to each other.

FInallly, the question we started out with is not a question of identity in the usual philosophical sense, but in this Cartesian sense. It is about the "I" that imagines things and what the limits of such an imagination might be. Or at least is related more to that than to my "public" identity. There doesn't seem to be much waiting to be said about it. That explains our diversion to the standard philosophical debate. But the difficulty of imagining myself as a different person clearly plays in to the debate we are actually having.

Personalities it has been reported, are very much tied to genetics, even though it is also shaped in large part by environment, for example. It is probable that various capacities and abilities are more likely tied to genes than people might admit, etc. — schopenhauer1

When hydrogen and oxygen combine in a process to make water, when water forms, it is now that substance and not its antecedents we are discussing. — schopenhauer1

I take it that you would object to any suggestion that either hydrogen or oxygen is water in any sense. It is only the combination that is water. Equally, each of us is the result of our genes and environment in combination. Your claim that my DNA is me is the same misunderstanding as the suggestion that hydrogen is water. It is the combination of genes and environment that results in the person. To put the point another way, personalities are very much tied to genetics and also to the environment. Both connections have been widely reported and extensively analysed. Bluntly, I am just as much the result of my environment as I am of my genes. After decades of debate about which has priority, there are now some sensible voices that declare that the influence of the two cannot be disentangled.

I'm curious what you think about natural kinds and causation Ludwig V -- it seems that since continuity of a person is the real underlying topic, though through the lens of the identity of objects (however we wish to construe that), I'm wondering if you believe natural kinds and causation have anything to do with the continuity of a person? — Moliere

I would have thought that causation (broadly understood) would have a great deal to do with the continuity of anything that exists in space and time.

I don't understand what natural kinds are supposed to be. The oft-cited example of water does not help me. In the first place, water is one of three forms of that particular molecular structure - (steam (gas), water (liquid), ice (solid)). Second, there are two forms of water (light and heavy) and no less than eight forms of ice. Third, Putnam's twin worlds seem to demonstrate that it is an empirical fact that water could have more than one molecular analysis, though his hypothesis that we might be unable to tell the difference seems wildly implausible to me. In addition to that a quick look at, for example, the Wikipedia article on this topic indicates that there is a wide range of views about what they are, which means that simply to accept that there are natural kinds is to accept a pig in a poke.

I was under the impression that the continuity of a person is the topic in hand. No doubt the continuity of physical objects is part of that story. But I don't think it is the whole story. See my response to schopenhauer1 below.

K1 is invalid. Kripke justifies its occasional use as “by a priori philosophical analysis”... a somewhat ambiguous phrasing. — Banno

That's very interesting. So many questions. I used to accept it before I read Naming and Necessity but that article persuaded me that it's meaning, if any, is extremely obscure. One day, perhaps, I will be able to cross-question you.

The example from (1971) is that this wooden lectern could not have been made of ice, because then it would not have been this lectern... it would have been a different lectern. — Banno

Yes. I was entranced, reading that passage, by the rhetorical gestures that Kripke felt he had to resort to in explaining his meaning; one could almost hear him thumping it. It isn't quite clear to me why that was necessary. Surely "this particular lectern" would have done the job. Schopenhauer's use of "YOU" as opposed to "you" or even "Ludwig V" is similarly fascinating.

Notice that this is not an empirical issue; it is an "a priori" commission - "this genome counts as schopenhauer1". — Banno

Yes. Am I right to suppose that what makes a rigid designator rigid is our decision to keep it rigid, which means following the rule for its use rigidly. It makes a kind of sense, though I can't help wondering what Wittgenstein would have made of it.

I suppose one could think of a genome in that way, but it seems just obvious to me that the link between DNA and the individual who grows from it is empirical; that a fertilized egg is not sentient, not conscious and hence not a person; and consequently that neither schopenhauer1 not anyone else has ever been a fertilized egg (though we have all been a baby). Perhaps there is an argument somewhere in Roman Catholic doctrine about this, but I doubt that I would be inclined to accept it.

You don't say! I can't imagine what you have in mind. But thank you. I'll hold off on introducing the next lecture.

Ryle himself is uncharacteristically cautious about his arguments in this lecture - “I have produced quite an apparatus of somewhat elaborate arguments, all of which need expansion and reinforcement. I expect that the logical ice is pretty thin under some of them.” p.29

I do think he is fairly explicit that this problem is a problem of logic, not of causality. So Free Will is probably not at stake here. Here are two quotations:-

"A large part of the reason is that in thinking of a predecessor making its successor necessary we unwittingly assimilate the necessitation to causal necessitation. Gunfire makes windows rattle a few seconds later, but rattling windows do not make gunfire happen a few seconds earlier, even though
they may be perfect evidence that gunfire did happen a few seconds earlier. We slide, that is, into thinking of the anterior truths as causes of the happenings about which they were true, where the mere matter of their relative dates saves us from thinking of happenings as the effects of those truths about them which are posterior to them. Events cannot be the effects of their successors, any more than we can be the offspring of our posterity." p. 21

"It is quite true that a backer cannot guess correctly that Eclipse will win without Eclipse winning and still it is quite false that his guessing made or caused Eclipse to win." p.22

As to conclusions, some of us got quite excited about this generalization of some of his arguments: - "Roughly, statements in the future tense cannot convey singular, but only general propositions, where statements in the present and past tense can convey both." p.27 I'm not sure than anyone thinks it is right, but it is quite persuasive in its context. I do think there is something in it.

"Certain thinkers, properly impressed by the excellent logical discipline of the technical concepts of long-established and well consolidated sciences like pure mathematics and mechanics, have urged that intellectual progress is impeded by the survival of the unofficial concepts of unspecialized thought...... It is, of course, quite true that scientific, legal or financial thinking could not be conducted only in colloquial idioms. ....... the specialist when he comes to use the designed terms of his art (sc. does not) cease to depend upon the concepts which he began to master in the nursery, any more than the driver, whose skill and interests are concentrated on the mechanically complex and delicate works of his car, cease to avail himself of the mechanically crude properties of the public highway. He could not use his car without using the roads, though he could, as the pedestrian that he often is, use these same roads without using his car." p. 35

But you say that you are giving up on this lecture. I'm now a bit uncertain what to do for the best. Lecture IV on pleasure has not attracted any comment or debate. I was thinking of posting a summary of lecture V "The world of science and the everyday world" which might attract more interest. But if you would like me to wait for you, I doubt anybody will be inconvenienced. What do you think?

The microscope doesn't need to be that granular when we reference the event. — schopenhauer1

But the event is the creation of a fertilized egg, which is beginning of a process which will result - years later - in a new person. That process of development involves a web of other factors. Why do you pick that event out? Think of it this way. Some eggs hatch into caterpillars; the caterpillars grow and eventually become pupae; the pupae hatch out and a butterfly emerges. The caterpillar eggs are not caterpillars, pupae or butterflies. The butterflies are not pupae, caterpillars or caterpillar eggs. Why do you say that a human egg (fertilized, like my caterpillar eggs) is a person?

Responding to the rest of your post will have to wait, I'm afraid.

But then, that too, would be a result. — Ludwig V

I want to add to the disquisition above.

1) Thinking about the possibility/impossibility of becoming a different person from the one I am, I came up with three (real-life) possibilities. People do sometimes change their name and/or adopt a different identity, often for reasons of convenience, but sometimes not. Where this is does for religious reasons, and, perhaps, some other cases, I believe that it is done precisely in order to signify a major change in life, amounting to becoming a different person. The other is the (contested) phenomenon of multiple personality. And, perhaps, this is part of what is called gender change. However, I don't think these cases could remain uncontested and very much doubt whether any court would accept them as a reason for escaping criminal or civil responsibility. For me, (and this is where I think schopenhauer1 had a point) continuity of the body would be fundamental. Amnesia might, perhaps be an exception.

2) Having said that and considering when I would say that a new person had been created, I am struck by the long development period from conception to birth and adolescence to full maturity. I don't think there is a clear marker here - it is essentially a development process and (apart from conventional markers like age or perhaps some features of physical development) - there is no clear line when we can say that we have a new person.

Perhaps we should augment the principle of the identity of indiscernibles with another principle: the indiscernibility of identities. — Janus

I'll second that.

whereas to a large extent the direction of fit is the revers of this - we get to choose. — Banno

I'm afraid I can't resist elaborating on this. Where inanimate objects are involved we get to choose - or perhaps more accurately we get to choose the criteria. Common sense would say that once the criteria are in place, the objects fit or don't - not up to us. But then, there's Wittgenstein on rules, so in that sense, we do get to choose even then.
Animate beings that aren't people are a half-way house.
People, however, are not passive. They can have opinions and make claims on us. So I would prefer to say there's a negotiation. It's not hard to think of examples.

but to simplify the question: — Janus

I agree that it is very, very hard to deal with all the complexities of any interesting question. The trouble is that the devil is almost always in the detail, so I'm reluctant to ignore complexities, even if it isn't possible to sort them all out. A grand simplification always gets me going, I'm afraid. Perhaps it is better to think in terms of focus rather than simplification and then it is easier to at least acknowledge complexities.

one would need to very carefully differential between modal identity and personal identity, between a=a and what makes schopenhauer1 who he is. — Banno

I have to confess that I don't really understand what modal identity is. A brief explanation or a reference would help me a lot.

the instance of that person still needs to have started somewhere, that person started with the casual-temporal-spatial instance of the combination of gametes of an individual. — schopenhauer1

I don't look at it quite that way. It seems to me that the idea of a causal chain is always an over-simplication. The spark may cause the explosion, but not without the explosive - and how did the two get together? The idea of a causal web is usually a better way to look at things - as many, many accident reports illustrate. When looking for a causal chain for a specific event, it is more helpful to identify a causal web and then select the most helpful causal chain.
The idea that the formation of a new DNA is the starting-point of the individual plays in to common sense. But it can be seriously misleading, as in the interminable and insoluble nature/nurture debates. I think you will find that the more balanced view that the two are inseparable and that we will do best by accepting that we are a combination of both is at last gaining ground.

This is a good point because this started as a discussion of hindsight and counterfactuals - what life would be like if you were born in different circumstances. My point in that discussion was that at some point there could be no changes in circumstances without not existing at all. — schopenhauer1

My quest here is to find an objective thing that differentiates a person from being all possibilities that that person can hold. — schopenhauer1

I don't get this. The possibilities are of the person - It's you who might have had pink shoes on. I don't see a question clear enough to have an answer — Banno

This is indeed where the debate between me and schopenhauer1 started - in the context of what the limits are of imagination. I might have been an accountant or a rock star. (In my opinion, the first is plausible, the second not.) The question is, if I had been an accountant or a rock star, would I have become a different person? For me, it depends what you mean by a different person. A stronger example might be the question whether could I imagine being a bat, which means with a bat's perceptions and desires. I don't think so. A weaker case is the one about wearing pink shoes. I agree, not only that I might have worn pink shoes this morning, but that I can imagine myself wearing pink shoes. This question may well be too unclear to be answerable. But then, that too, would be a result.

between a=a and what makes schopenhauer1 who he is. — Banno

I would want to say that what makes schopenhauer1 who he is is partly determined by who he thinks he is and even who he chooses to be - I'm not saying it's entirely up to him, just that he is a participant.

A question that bothers me. I don't know whether it matters, but what is the difference, if any, between "what he is" and "who he is". The what question is asked of inanimate objects as well as people. The who question can only be asked of people. But how significant is that? Do we need two sets of criteria for people - one for their identity as physical object and living creature and the other for their identity as people? But that sounds like a kind of dualism, which makes me hesitate.

I haven't ruled out its being possible, nor do I rule out its being impossible: we just don't know, which is what I've being trying to get across. — Janus

Well, what matters most to me is that, so far as I can see, there's nothing to rule out the possibility and no positive evidence to establish impossibility. There is a common belief, dear to all of us, that each individual person is unique and irreplaceable - and the discovery of DNA seemed to give a physical basis for that belief. But that it seems to me to be an article of faith, though there is the identity of indiscernibles to fall back on.

Moliere didn't exist until I made an account on The Philosophy Forum, which was far after all of these events. ...... The only thing that happened to give me this name is dubbing myself as Moliere on The Philosophy Forum rather than the physical facts of my body. — Moliere

As to the first sentence, I notice that it was possible that you might not have made the account, though I get the point that it is no longer possible.

As to the second, for me, what is important is not so much the dubbing ceremony as the consequences, which are that other people use the name and you respond to it. That's at least part of what your identity qua person consists in. That obviously isn't true of names for objects.

the two leaves are identical in all respects except in regard to occupying the same space. — Janus

Well, I don't see why we need to rule that out as impossible. It may be very unlikely, but unlikely things do happen. And we'll never check enough leaves to establish an empirical possibility.

I would be prepared to wager that there never have been any cases — Janus

I wouldn't bet against you. But that's not the point.

Here is the individual, this individual has the name Moliere, — Moliere

It would be one thing to establish this identity at some specific moment in the life of an individual. In one way, I don't mind what you pick, although I think you'll have difficulty identifying a plausible threshold in the long process of growing up and maturing; birth is not a bad alternative.

But let me point out again that the expected individual does not exist at the moment of conception; all that exists is a fertilized egg, which is an individual egg, if you like, but is not yet an individual person. (Unless you are following the unusual idea that is sometimes propounded in the context of the abortion argument. I don't think it has any currency or point outside that argument.)

There are others who have tried to make the idea work. For my part I don't see why there should be only one explanation for how reference works. — Banno

It is a relief to hear that the causal theory was an afterthought. That first sentence suggests that it hasn't worked, which fits with my prejudice. Now you mention it, I don't see any reason to object to the idea that there may be different kinds (categories) of reference.

The upshot in Identity and Necessity seems to be that while this person could not have had a different genetics, schopenhauer1 might have. — Banno

I meant to point out that, apart from the complexity of self-awareness and the capacity for self-reference, there is an additional complexity that a person is (normally) a human being (a living, sentient creature) and is/has a body. So there are criteria of identity in play at each level. But objects can also be identified under different (levels of) description. I know that's not supposed to affect names, but it can certainly affect objects. I mean, Kripke's lectern is (also) a piece of wood and an item of furniture and a philosophical example.

So, I think I am in alignment with this, but with some additions. — schopenhauer1

I've always thought that some modifications were necessary. For example, there are two different kinds of water - heavy and light. Wikipedia tells me that "Ice exhibits at least eighteen phases (packing geometries), depending on temperature and pressure". (See Wkikipedia - Ice. These differences are associated with different behaviours of the material. We call both kinds water and all eighteen kinds ice - (though maybe those differences are not relevant - who would decide?). "Water is H20" and "Ice is H20" could politely be called an over-simplification. It's true that for some purposes, the differences don't matter, but for other purposes, they might. How does Kripke's argument cope with this?

It is possible, of course, that we are mistaken about the chemical composition of water, but that does not affect the necessity of identities. — Wiki Article

Well, even if we are right, in all the centuries before H2O was known, we didn't know what water is. How on earth did we manage to identify it? Luck?

The upshot in Identity and Necessity seems to be that while this person could not have had a different genetics, schopenhauer1 might have. — Banno

I think you are on the right track. But you are missing out the complexity of people. The unique identifier is surely "I", which does inescapably refer to the speaker (if used correctly). Admittedly, understanding "I" requires an understanding of "you" and the third person as well. Our names are useful as well, once we have learned them and learned how to respond to them. (You will understand that this is only a gesture for the much longer account that would be necessary to even approach accuracy.)

So, I would not say that DNA is the essence of what we are at all. — Janus

And I would agree with you.

Whether we could ever find any two natural objects of the senses, whether biological or not, which were physically indistinguishable, is an empirical question I agree. — Janus

Yes. But you inadvertently run into the oddity about the Identity of Indiscernibles. If you know you have two objects in front of you, you know they are not identical in all respects. The only way this problem could arise would be if you knew about two different appearances of the same object, which may not be both in front of you at the same time. We know how to cope with that in practice, but I'm not sure that logic does.

Here's my summary of Lecture IV on Pleasure.

This lecture is a new departure. The previous two, it turns out, were exercises, now we get serious.

The last paragraph arrives at the expected conclusion that “category mistakes” are at the root of the issues. There is a new general moral “Dilemmas derive from wrongly imputed parities of reasoning.” (pp. 66-67)

There’s a qualification. “But we must not be ungrateful to either of these borrowed trappings. We learn the powers of a borrowed tool side by side with learning its limitations, and we find out the properties of the material as well when we find out how and why the borrowed tool is ineffectual upon it, as when we find out how and why it is effectual. In the end we design the tool for the material-in the end, but never in the beginning.” (p. 66) This is something rather different from the “Concept of Mind”, which seems to find no redeeming feature in the category mistake he is discussing there.

His aims also imply a more tolerant attitude to category mistakes. “I want … to exhibit how, at the level of thought on which we have first to think not just with but about even a quite commonplace concept or family of concepts, it is natural and even inevitable for us to begin by trying to subject it to a code or standard, which we know how to operate elsewhere. Dilemmas result when the conduct of the new conscript diverges from the imposed standard.” (p. 55)

The first (and probably the most important) problem is:- “I begin by considering a piece of theoretical harness which some pioneers in psychological theory, with natural over-confidence, formerly tried to hitch on to the notion of pleasure. Thinking of their scientific mission as that of duplicating for the world of mind what physicists had done for the world of matter, they looked for mental counterparts to the forces in terms of which dynamic explanations were given of the movements of bodies.” (p. 56)

This turns out to mean:- “Hence it seemed reasonable to set up as axioms of human dynamics such plausible, yet also unplausible, propositions as that all desires are desires for pleasure; that all purposive actions are motivated by the desire for a net increase in the quantity of the agent's pleasure or a net decrease in the quantity of his pain; and that the dynamic efficacy of one pleasure differs from that of another only if the former is bigger, i.e. more intense or more protracted or both than the latter.” (p. 57)

The critique here centres on the comparison of pleasure with pain and hence the idea that is a sensation.

There is one other major target:- “The problem in what sorts of terms human nature is to be described was at one time thought to be solved or half-solved by deliberately borrowing the idioms of politics.” (p. 64) He admits that the metaphor is less popular than it used to be:- "This parallel strikes us nowadays as not much more than a striking and picturesque metaphor.” (p. 64).

I can’t resist commenting that there is also a tradition of running the metaphor the other way – comparing the state to the individual rather the individual to a state. This makes it a most unusual example of metaphor. Whether this is explaining the unknown by appealing to something even more unknown or each casting light on the other, I cannot say. Teamwork, authority, and balance seem to be the themes either way.

The critique here is much briefer that the critique of the first idea. It centres on the idea that pleasure is an emotion.

Ryle doesn’t explicitly discuss pleasure very much. He focuses instead on two other concepts which are, admittedly, closely related to pleasure - enjoyment or disliking:- “The notions of enjoying and disliking are not technical notions.” (p. 55) Enjoyment doesn’t seem to have a single convenient opposite, and this may be why he chooses such an odd pairing.

His focus isn’t obviously wrong, but one might wonder about other concepts in this family - “delight”, “happiness”, “satisfaction”, “bliss”, “gratification”, “contentment”, “gladness”, “delectation”. These, or at least some of them, might have broadened the discussion in a helpful way. On the other hand, he does mention the variety of contexts in which pleasure is discussed:- “There are many overlapping fields of discourse in which, long before philosophizing begins, generalities about pleasure are bound to be mooted and debated.” (p. 56). I’m not sure how significant these points may be.

I/m sorry, but I don't understand what you mean by "buttering" in this message. On the other hand, perhaps it isn't important.

I think it's time to move on to the next lecture - "Pleasure". I'll post it as soon as I can.

If the criteria for establishing identity are physical, — Janus

That's a big "if". I would have thought that the criteria most important to most people are social - and even when they are physical, they often also have social connotations.

Whether those DNA patterns can change, as physiognomy obviously does would not seem to matter. — Janus

Changes in actual DNA are mutations and part of what's going on, but not, I would have thought a major part. At least, I had in mind the point that the way that DNA is expressed often depends on environmental factors. I have seen it is claimed that there is as much reason to say that we are products of our environment as products of our DNA. The idea that everything is down to DNA is an over-simplification that panders to our essential inclinations that DNA is the essence of what we are.

but the details will not be exactly the same in any two cases, — Janus

I won't argue with you. But isn't that an empirical claim, which it is difficult to impossible to refute. Isn't the real truth that the probability of an two leaves being identical is very, very small. But still, it can't be ruled out completely. When you get down to brass tacks, the same is true of DNA.

If that is the case then to say anything stays the same is a fallacy and it would also make the term is/change identical. — I like sushi

The Heraclitean/Bhuddist idea that everything changes is the obverse/reverse of the claim that everything stays the same. As your next sentence shows, the truth is much more complicated than either. The mistake is to fasten on one view as The Truth and not to pay attention to what is really going on, which is a mixture.

I will have to consider more subtleties like this into my view. — Apustimelogist

I think my favourite complexity is the one about the non-coding bases, which are 98% of the molecule. What is all that stuff doing there? I don't believe it is doing nothing. The question is, what is it doing? Talk about terra incognita

It doesn't make any logical difference.

Would "Achilles runs faster past smaller distances" cover it?

For example, if the sperm that "won the race" in your case had not made it, someone else, not you, would have existed in your place; — Janus

This is where the third person view helps. Since I wouldn't have existed, how would we know that the replacement wasn't you? Equally, then, how do we know that the proposed minor variation - even if it caused a massive difference - would have been at all different from me? It's based on the assumptions 1) that the DNA would have been different in some way that made a difference to the result and 2) that every difference is equally important.

Absolutely. But it's interesting, because it is very unlikely that one will again come across the exact same chess position, and be able to make a different choice in the exact same situation, and yet one learns how to look, and how to analyse other positions and make other choices better. So counterfactuals function as useful notions here. — unenlightened

All of that is true. But the important thing here is that although one may never encounter the exact some position again, the process of analysis can reveal similarities among those differences. Some of them will matter, and some will not. When one can do that, one can learn from past experience. But if every difference is equally important and equally makes a position different in the sense that past experience is irrelevant, then past experience can teach you nothing.

If I had been a soldier in Cromwell's army, then necessarily the right sperm and egg would have miraculously come together at the appropriate time to make that happen. — unenlightened

I like that answer. Very neat.

The genes obviously contribute but seems intuitive one might change genetic information or phenotypic traits of a person and retain the identity. — Apustimelogist

It is well established that the links between genes and specific characteristics are very complicated and often surprising.

"A large part of DNA (more than 98% for humans) is non-coding, meaning that these sections do not serve as patterns for protein sequences." From Wikipedia article - "DNA"
From this it follows that a random variation in one base of the molecule is unlikely to cause a variation in the phenotype.

Here are some more complications:-
"Many features of a phenotype result from more than one genetic modification. An organism's phenotype results from two basic factors: the expression of an organism's genetic code (its genotype) and the influence of environmental factors. Both factors may interact, further affecting the phenotype." from Wikipedia - "Phenotype"
"When two or more clearly different phenotypes exist in the same population of a species, the species is called polymorphic. A well-documented example of polymorphism is Labrador Retriever colouring; while the coat colour depends on many genes, it is clearly seen in the environment as yellow, black, and brown." Wikipedia - "Phenotype"
"A genetic disorder is a health problem caused by one or more abnormalities in the genome. It can be caused by a mutation in a single gene (monogenic) or multiple genes (polygenic) or by a chromosomal abnormality. Although polygenic disorders are the most common, the term is mostly used when discussing disorders with a single genetic cause, either in a gene or chromosome. The mutation responsible can occur spontaneously before embryonic development (a de novo mutation), or it can be inherited from two parents who are carriers of a faulty gene (autosomal recessive inheritance) or from a parent with the disorder (autosomal dominant inheritance). When the genetic disorder is inherited from one or both parents, it is also classified as a hereditary disease. Some disorders are caused by a mutation on the X chromosome and have X-linked inheritance. Very few disorders are inherited on the Y chromosome or mitochondrial DNA (due to their size)." Wikipedia article - "Genetic disorder"

It is pretty clear. Piece by piece if every part is replaced it is still ‘the original’ as it is their ship. Someone collecting and reassembling the parts produce their own ship not someone else’s ‘original’ ship. — I like sushi

Well, I'm not sure about that, but it seems to be the standard answer these days. What I was after was the doctrine that any change, not matter how small, make it is different ship, or a different person.

it is very instructive to go through an old game of one's own with an experienced player who can point out problems one had not seen and possibilities one did not consider, — unenlightened

Quite so. I think the difficulty here is that if one is looking forwards, possibilities could become actual. But if one is looking backward, they could not. If one then says that the moves one actually made are now necessary, it looks as if someone is trying to deny that what was a possibility then, is not a possibility now. If that were true, one could not consider them after the game. Which is absurd.
The idea that what is, is necessary is an exaggeration of the familiar point that a move that was possible in the middle of the game can no longer be made after the game is over.

In terms of counterfactual scenarios, though, I think schopenhauer1 is correct to say that, in consideration of the genesis of any particular organism, any circumstances which would have produced a different genotype at conception, would result in a different entity existing. — Janus

But then, any circumstances after conception that affect the development of the DNA will also result in a different entity existing. Surely? The development from DNA to person is not a railway track, but a path through rough country - to an indeterminate destination.

The fact that, on this account, the DNA is a necessary condition, but not sufficient, allows for the possibility that there are other conditions that could have produced the same result. No?

Yes, I get the intuition. It seems to make sense, more from the causal link standpoint than the blueprint one because I am not sure that DNA can be identified with us as opposed to picking out us in a way that is somewhat incidental. — Apustimelogist

Well, a DNA molecule is not a person, so it seems clear that the identity of the molecule is not equivalent to the identity of the person. The DNA molecule is not the resulting person, but one of the causal conditions that produces that person. But then, some people think that causal conditions are necessary, which seems to me to abolish the meaning of "contingent" and so deprive "necessary" of its own meaning.

There is nothing here and I confused why there is a needless back and forth debating why YOU is important as some non-existent being that is never non-existent because YOU exist. — I like sushi

I think that's why it is important not to frame these issues by reference to the first or second person. They are a lot clearer if one asks the questions in the third person.
The other thing that muddles this debate up is the idea that if Theseus' ship has the tiniest, most unimportant part of itself replaced, it is a different ship. Surely we all know that the point at which the changes to the ship make it a different ship is not clearly defined.

Here's a link for a download Austin "Sense and Sensibilia"

Lecture VII pp. 62 - 77.

I hope you find it enjoyable and profitable.

Thereby hangs a PhD - or a career. — Banno

Thank you. I'm not the person to do that work. I think I'll remain respectfully sceptical.

Oh, I'll say it is correct - it's not wrong. But unfulfilled - yeah, ok. — Banno

Correct/wrong is a very intricate issue. Complete agreement is hard to find. But is his doctrine right enough to resolve the fatalist's argument?


I agree with what you say. My version of this is that Achilles may have to pass an infinite number of points to pass the tortoise, but he has the advantage that he can pass each point in an infinitesimal amount of time.

I don't think talking in this way invokes any ontological mystery. — Banno

Well, if my attempt involves ontological mystery, I'll give up on it.

I think it true that there will be an eclipse in March, 2025. — Banno

I'm glad that you don't think that it is like Hume's failure of the sun to rise tomorrow morning, which, it seems, will affect nothing else.

I agree that it is true that there will be an eclipse in March 2025. I suggest however, that the prediction that there will be an eclipse in March 2025 is neither correct nor incorrect, neither fulfilled or unfulfilled until April 2025. Will that do?

Because of the lack of volition? — Banno

I've been thinking about precious little else for hours.

Since Kripke, It ain't necessarily so. — Banno

Very good. The prospect of an infinite regress of necessities is positively intimidating.

But seriously, who invented this idea, and is it proof against Humean scepticism? If not, why not?

If you do a search you will find several articles that credit Zeno. — Fooloso4

OK. It is certainly possible that he was, and it is hard to be sure of anything about those very early philosophers. It just seems so odd that an argument that seems quite clearly to establish a conclusion should actually be intended to keep ideas in play. I suppose an argument for an absurd conclusion could be intended to provoke a response, rather than to establish a truth. But we'll never really know what Zeno intended.

An apparent dig at Austin...? — Banno

I find that hard to believe. Austin puts a lot of emphasis on the inter-connectedness of words. Austin would certainly consider "cause" and all sorts of related words at the same time, bringing out their differences and similarities, wouldn't he?

But then, a dig doesn't have to be fair.

I've been unable to follow what Ryle means here by "general" and "singular". — Banno

Ryle does preface his articulation of the idea with "roughly", so it wouldn't be surprising to find deficiencies.

I got worried about that and came up with this:-

I'm bothered about someone having a heart attack, and getting to hospital where they prevent his death. Can we not say that his death was averted? Perhaps we can say that it was averted last Sunday, but not that his death last Sunday was averted. — Ludwig V

But I can't work out a similar tactic for the lunar eclipse. The best I can do is a gesture. The eclipse is predictable, but does not yet exist (is not actual). When it happens, it will become real/actual and when it is over it will have been real/actual.

(My apologies to Austin. I couldn't think of a better way of putting that.)

You could say that the job of a counter-factual is to consider impossible possibilities.

It was a genuine question. I don't know what causal necessity means. I know what "I inherited my fair hair from my parents means." But then, I've been reading Hume.

Yes, but I see no reason to take such a view seriously. — Banno

I've discovered that I'm a bit prone to being distracted by side-issues, so I won't ask what that means.

Dialectical movement does not resolve things, it keeps them in play. — Fooloso4

I'm puzzled. I thought Socrates/Plato invented dialectic. What's the evidence that any pre-Socratics knew about dialectics?